We had a lovely dinner tonight, wrapped up with some excitement at the end. A few times during the meal we had heard a motorcycle outside, revving loudly. Really, really LOUD. So loud we'd have to stop talking until it was done. Then five minutes or so later, it would start back up again.
Apparently the outdoor diners didn't care for having their meal ruined by some asshole on a Harley. And one of them yelled at the biker, "is this the first time you've ever been on a bike?" Well the biker didn't like that, so he yelled back "Is this the first time you've ever had a meal?" and started revving again. Then the diner started screaming "Get out of here asshole, we don't want you here!" and threw ice at the biker. At which point the biker picked up one of those real estate newsletter stands and threw it at the diner. No one was hurt; everyone at that table got wine all over themselves and a planter was smashed.
We were inside when all this was happening; all we heard was the Harley revving, then the screaming, and Georg could see out the window and saw the newsletter stand flying through the air. When we left there was a strange sort of stalemate: all the outdoor diners had come inside and were sort of milling around, and the bikers were just standing there outside, revving their engines a little, not aggressively like before. No one seemed to be doing anything. A bystander filled in the details for us while we were walking away.
One of the bystanders, an older gentleman riding on one of those Hoveround things, said "people like that give the good bikers a bad name." Later I wondered about the outdoor diners: that one guy had arguably started the fight, but there were five tables out there and they all had to flee in the middle of their meals. Did the restaurant comp them? It's funny because I had been really bummed out that we couldn't get a table outside. And then it turned out to be lucky for us.
In any case, the moral for today is: Don't throw things at a guy on a Harley. Even if he's acting like a dick.